


What Matters Most

by missema



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Family, Fate, Gen, Magic, Minor Character Death, Slavery, Tevinter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missema/pseuds/missema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Dragon Age Holiday Gift Exchange</p><p>A slave's life is usually a particular kind of capricious, set by the whims of their master, but not for Varania and Leto.  The intervention of fate changes their family, and their lives forever.  These are snippets of Varania's life told in flashbacks on the day her mother dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Matters Most

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LaFemmeDarla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaFemmeDarla/gifts).



She can't tell the tears on her face from the rain falling from the sky. The rain is always warm in Tevinter, even in the winters. Varania didn't care that the wind and rain battered at her, mixing salty tears and warm water on her face and then brushing it away with brutal force. There were things to be done, and she walked on in the rain, because it gave her something to do other than sit and wait. She couldn't wait, not anymore.

Her mother is dead and she is all alone now.

 

#####

"Leto, catch me! Catch me, Leto!" Her tiny voice calls out happily as her brother chases her around the courtyard. "Catch me!" She demands.

He does, Leto's thin arms wrapping around Varania as she bangs into his chest, laughing at her capture. "I got you." He says, laughing back.

"Will you always catch me?" She asks, her wide eyes childish in the question, but not the intent.

"Varania." He says sternly. "You know how Mother warned us." Leto doesn't need to say more. They aren't free people, and there is no promise of always that they can keep.

But she is young and still wrapped around her brother, the mirth dying from her mouth as she shakes her head stubbornly. "Leto, Mother won't hear if you promise me." She says, hoping to coax the words from his mouth with her stubbornness.

All she gets is a shake of the head in return. "I can't promise nothing, but if I can I will be there for you."

Slaves don't make promises, she knows that, but still Varania bursts into angry, frustrated tears that Leto doesn't know how to calm. He rocks her against his chest, cradling her with thin arms until she stops crying, but won't give her the promise, not even when she kicks him.

 

#####

Death comes fast when it has a willing offering. Varania watched her mother wither away within a matter of days of taking ill, a woman that was once a venerable oak in her life has been uprooted, leaving naught but a crater behind. She walks angrily, oh yes - each step is a stomp against the crumbling, wet pavement, and her eyes leak with tears but remain defiantly open against the wind - each step an effort to tamp down her rage.

Her mind isn't quite clear enough to understand where the rage came from or what she's supposed to do with it, so Varania focuses on the task at hand. She needs a priest to give her mother the rites, someone willing to come to their slummy part of town to get the shell that was once her mother and take it to the Chantry.

The boots she wears have holes as big as coppers in the bottom, holes that she meant to fix but she'd gotten busy trying to keep her mother alive and forgot about them. Holes that let floods of water wash over her toes with each step, every little annoyance adding heat the flame she's trying to tamp down. She knows her efforts will be futile. Her rage - white hot and more dangerous than actual flame - always spills over.

 

######

Mother was always warning her about her temper. A slave must have none at all, because even a flash of the eyes is enough to warrant a beating. Any shortness can be exploited and used against them, against their family. Varania hides it when she can, when she's working at Mother's side, doing the mending. She is not, however, obliged to hide it when it's just her and Leto.

They have a small, separate area in the house, so the master can always get to Mother whenever she is needed. It is a place of importance amongst the slaves, and they respect Mother. Her skill was and years of obedience has earned them small measures of status in the household, a rank among the slaves. Varania doesn't understand the price of being distinguished when it is better to blend in.

She fights with Leto because he is annoying her, because they bicker like any other siblings. They were arguing about something that means nothing in retrospect. They clashed by hurling words at each other, calling names and aiming to injure.

Her hand wrapped around his wrist, to stop him from turning away from her.

She burned him and they both stopped shouting immediately. Varania's hand burned Leto as it encircled his wrist.

His eyes were widened, looking pure emerald in their shock. She imagined that her face must have looked the same for a moment before she crumpled. Once again, her brother held her as she cried, and had no way to comfort her.

 

#####

She has a pocket full of gold - more than she's ever had all at once before. If she were given to more wry thoughts, she might have even termed it her mother's 'legacy'.

Turns out there's not that many jobs for newly freed slaves with no references. The magisters have a hold on nearly everything and just walking away with your freedom doesn't mean much at all. Eventually, there was work, but only because of Mother. A talented seamstress and tailor she wound up able to find work for both of them. Varania didn't have her mother's gift for the needle, but she worked hard and was meticulous.

The illness came upon her mother suddenly and swiftly. She didn't linger. Her last full commission was a dress for one of the regular year end parties held by the magisters. This was a unique piece though, because it wasn't for a magister, but for a woman looking to marry above her station. Varania didn't know or care much about the woman, but her mother had worked hard, and Varania wound up doing the finishing stitching on the piece as she sat with her mother during her final night, listening each labored breath rattle in and out again.

"Is my dress ready?" The woman asked after Varania answered the door. She'd come without notice to their house when the shop had informed her that Mother wasn't in. They didn't know she was gone.

"It's finished." Varania said, not caring about the rudeness in her tone. "And my mother is dead." Saying the words aloud made them feel strangely surreal.

"My sympathies." The woman sniffed, but then narrowed her eyes at Varania. "She and I agreed on a price of 20 gold." She clutched at her purse with long, red painted nails like talons, the sack gaudily brimming with wealth. If she were truly wealthy, a servant would have come in her stead, since there was no need for fittings. This woman was a pretender, but that was just the type Varania needed.

Varania already knew the price of twenty crowns was false, she could see the invoice perfectly in her head, but she knew that calling out the lie without proof would cause the opposite of what she wanted. With quick, deliberate steps she walked over to where her mother kept records and pulled out the parchment where she'd written down her orders in a tiny, neat hand. Her mother had little experience writing, but never wanted to give anyone cause to doubt her word.

"It says here forty." Varania said. The woman huffed impatiently, angry that she might have to fulfill the bargain she made. As if she could trick Varania in her grief, knowing that it would have been nigh impossible to make her pay later. "It is a fine garment." She said, more to herself than to the woman.

The woman let out a noise like a grunt, but said nothing. Varania continued, "It would be a shame if this wasn't the dress my mother made for you and I had to sell it to someone else. You seem to think yours costs 20 gold, and this clearly is worth more. Probably closer to eighty."

The woman drew in a breath so quickly it hissed between her crimson painted lips. "You would dare?"

Varania gave her a dead, hard stare that made the woman recoil. "I know the worth of this work, and I know there won't be another made like it. So it's worth more. Simple economics."

When the woman left, Varania had eighty gold coins to tuck into a purse that had hardly ever seen even a tenth of that amount.

 

#####

Leto told their mother immediately after Varania stopped crying. He had stars in his eyes, and thought that she might become a magister, or at least an apprentice. They might become more than slaves.

Mother shook her head at him sternly. "Think, Leto. There are plenty of people with magic, but few magisters. You think she's the first slave to discover power? They will kill her to keep her from using it, to keep us slaves."

He quieted down then and listened to his mother. They didn't speak about it with outsiders and Varania didn't use her magic. Her mother insisted that they never do, because to tell others of it would risk them being separated. She's tried to keep them together the best she can, all these years. Leto and Varania don't argue. They don't want to made to leave their Mother, though they have seen it happen with families, brothers and sisters, fathers, mothers, husbands and wives. Some never see each other again. She never wants that to happen.

Their master wasn't a cruel woman, but one who wanted to be more than she was. She played host to other magisters, pawing at the men and agreeing sycophantically with the women whenever they visited. She loved to show off her house, her stables, her library - anything that might make her rise in the eyes of others. Mother was essential in the house, her days filled with making the latest fashions and repairing party dresses. But she wasn't so essential that the magister mightn't sell or kill one of her children if proven to be a mage. Killing her would thin out potential competition, and selling her would bring in coin. Or they could all be sold or killed. There was too much uncertainty in telling, and more reasons to keep it a secret.

Leto already was separated from them. The cracking of his voice had given him away as coming of age, and he'd been moved to harder labor, more physical work while she and mother stayed in the house. He was still young, strong and the work merely exhausted him most days rather than break him. The older men weren't so lucky, and neither would he be in a few years.

One night Mother woke her and dressed her, hurried her through the courtyard and out to the stables. Another woman was there, an elf but older than Mother, with tired lines etched into her face and a mop of iron grey hair.

Their master had a great carriage that was pulled by four horses at a time, and the stable held three more. They were beautiful, all brown and muscled, well cared for by two who revered the animals and were never cruel to them. This old woman was in charge of the stables. She kept the horses with another slave, an old man that might have been her husband. But more importantly, she healed them as she tended to them and after that night, once a week she taught Varania to heal them too.

 

#####

The Chantry loomed ahead of her, great spires of crumbling stone with vine twining around it. The rain slicked over the leaves of the climbing vine, making them shine emerald in the flashes of lightning. She should go in, and she will, but not yet.

There's no clarity in her mind at the moment, and Varania waits until she can make sense of the din between her ears before moving on. Right now she is minded to do nothing more than warm herself near the brazier, the hot coals that were once called the fires of Dumat, but have since been changed to praise the absent Maker. There are still temples where the magisters go and pray to the Old Gods, but the Chantry holds considerable sway as well. The people, all the people, not just the poor or the upper echelons of senator, they all go to the Chantry, even if it is mere lip service in some cases.

Not in hers. She's always prayed for a better day, for understanding. She is surprisingly pious now that she thinks on it, but her mother always taught them to hope for more.

Her mother. That's why she was here. Varania shakes herself and focuses on the grand carved doors before her. Go in and give Mother one last wish for hope - a hope that her spirit has found something better than this life ever offered.

 

#####

Their master came around with another magister, who looked at all of them. There was talk that she might sell one of them to the man, who was reported to be a very powerful senator called Danarius. The household went about their work on eggshells, all of them on the guard for signs that change was coming, listening for whispers.

Danarius told them what he was about the next morning, after he'd had his fill of their master.

"Even the lowliest of slaves can aspire to glory in my competition. And to the winner I will grant a boon of their asking, anything at all once they join my house. They will not only get the boon, but power of legend from lyrium and will train to be the head of my personal guard. A respectable position." He added with a small laugh.

Varania inwardly scoffed at the offer, because only a fool would risk death to become an experiment for a magister.

Next to her, Leto's eyes hadn't left the space where Danarius had stood to deliver his _offer_.

 

#####

She doesn't realize how soaked she is until the rain has stopped, and the chill of water running down her legs makes her shiver.

It's strange for her to associate this place with death, because she has never seen death here. No priest blesses the departed souls of slaves, and that's the only way Varania has ever known death. When a heart that has worked too hard simply stops, or a beating too many. Or there's an accident that no one can prevent, because they were doing the work that's too dangerous for anyone else to do.

Whatever way it comes, it wound up the same. Slaves taking care of each other. A few words to mark the passage. Sometimes a priest would come by within a week and say the rite of the departed, if they were cajoled enough to come or young and naive enough to want to minister to the enslaved. The master would note a loss of property and be compensated.

This is all new - being free and having to follow this set of rules that no one ever bothered to explain to her. The Chantry controlled death, they would see to the body and perform the rites, offer Varania comfort. Then she would file the necessary government papers to declare her mother deceased in the eyes of the Archon. Whatever worldly goods her mother owned would formally pass to her, for whatever that was worth.

But first she just had to walk in the door.

 

#####

Leto had been her hero, but the minute he decided to enter the competition, things changed. He became fierce and single-minded in his determination, though he wouldn't tell them why. Their master was delighted, for his victory would mean she would gain favor with the senator.

Over and over Mother wondered what boon he could ask, but got no response. Varania got the awful feeling it was something to do with her magic, and wanted to tell him to stop, but the words wouldn't form and they said little to each other. Though it pained her, she prayed for him to win, because the ones that didn't win would surely die. Either in the competition itself, or by the hand of their masters for shaming them by losing.

And when he did emerge the victor, she felt nothing, only a hollowness inside that she tried to hide with a smile. Their mother wore a matching look.

Leto was swept away immediately after the competition, but he announced his boon - his family was to be freed.

They are set on the street that evening, with the household garbage. Most of the other slaves turn their back on them, envious of the freedom, but a few offer bits of food or coin to help them out.

Varania and her mother looked at each other, unsure of what to do next. What was freedom to one who had always known the comfort of a routine of service? Where could they possibly go now?

 

#####

"Come child, warm yourself." A brother said as soon as he saw Varania in the doorway. "You are always welcome here."

"Thank you." The words were a dark mutter that made the priest fix his eye on Varania, but she turned away from him.

A slave would never walk down the middle of the aisle and approach the head priest, but she did. She let the water drip from her body as she ignored the people around her. _Doesn't she know her place?_

Varania was free, and didn't have to skulk around the sides of the room so as not to wet the floor. She didn't have to answer to anyone. A purse bursting with coin said that they could answer to her for once, until she spent the last copper and her power faded.

When she reached the Grand Cleric, a powerfully built man in black robes with a mask over his eyes, she bowed her head.

"Your Grace, forgive me, but my Mother is dead."

 

#####

It's been months since they've seen Leto at all, but they try to pretend like it doesn't matter. They cry together at first, then separately because her mother can't stand to have Varania see her anymore.

Life isn't easier. Freedom didn't make them automatically employed or give them a place to live. There was some gold, at first, but the best they managed was a squalid, shared space with dirt floors. There's often no food, and Varania starts to wonder if maybe she should use her magic, finally do something that with it now that they don't have to worry about the magister and separation and retribution.

All of those things have already come to pass in her mind.

She doesn't understand that there is more to lose, more than this nothing that they have until she sees him in the market square one day. She is shopping the stalls, not the expensive stores that are located within the buildings that form the square itself. Truly they cannot afford this, but Varania is sick of eating fruit so overripe it tastes rotten on her tongue and stale bread with blue mold clinging to the outsides. She's saved her coin for something more - maybe a candied treat, maybe just something fresh. It all seemed so promising as she passed over it, looking this way and that at the wares, keeping her money close in her hand.

The magister is there, and it's him that catches her eye because at first, Varania doesn't recognize Leto. His hair is pure white like the clouds in the sky instead of the inky black it had once been. He looks the same yet different, more dangerous with the carved lines of lyrium running down his frame. She can see them through his clothes, a swirling sliver pattern that shows up through the black hose and peaks out under his gauntlets. She simply stares at him before shouting his name. He doesn't turn his head, but the magister does.

Within moments, she's surrounded by other guards of the magister, but he and Leto seem to have disappeared. They usher her away, telling her to wait near the outskirts of the market square. The coin in her palm is still there, etching its face into her skin.

She's expecting Leto to come and talk to her, chastise her for calling out, but it isn't him that arrives, it's the magister.

Danarius smiled at her, and it made her feel sick to her stomach. "He doesn't know that was his name." He starts out, and Varania gapes at him. The sickness in the pit of her stomach roils and makes her feel like she's going to retch as she forces herself to look in his eyes. They glitter coldly at her. "I took great pains to make sure he doesn't remember you or anyone, at all." He said softly. "But here you are, disturbing my servant."

"I wanted to talk to him." Varania said, her voice smaller than she intended. "I didn't mean to interfere, master." The word slips out and she grimaces at her own feet as she ducks her head, years of subservience coming right back to her. Free is the last thing she feels right now.

"Yes, and yet you have. I can't have you reminding my wolf, it might undo the work I've already done." Danarius pulled at his beard while he eyed her. "I could kill you and your mother, but that would be... messy." He said disdainfully. "Happiness would be far more efficient. Yes, I shall let you go away."

"Go away?" Varania breathed to herself, wondering what it meant.

"Yes, I think you might enjoy someplace else, like Quarinas more than Minrathous, wouldn't you?" His smile was pure evil, and Varania suddenly felt very, very sorry for her brother, even if he didn't know he was her brother any longer. Life with this man couldn't be easy at all, even if he was just guarding him.

It was wrong to wish for life as a slave, yet she found herself doing it on a near daily basis.

And that is how Varania loses her home, her city through her own selfishness. They are exiled in style, taken by ship across the bay with their meager belongings. Varania watches Minrathous become a smaller and smaller in the distance, and misses it when the muggy, oft rainy city of Quarinas becomes their new home. A place without a chance of seeing Leto ever again.

 

#####

The Grand Cleric led her out of the main hall and offered her tea, of all things. She drank without tasting, warming herself just by holding the cup.

He took her cup and refilled it when it was empty, then held her hand in his. The touch was comforting, urging her to speak without asking.

"Your Grace, my mother died this morning."

"May she be in peace now." He intoned. "We can take care of her if you tell us your wishes, magister."

Varania opened her mouth to speak, but then his words registered. "Magister? I have no right to that title. Why do you call me so?" She asked.

In response he nodded down to where he held her hand. Their magic was intertwined, blue sparks from her own hand mingling with purplish-red from his. "I know power when I see it. Whether or not you are a magister in title now doesn't mean it won't be so later." He said with the deep, slow cadence the priesthood used to keep an audience enthralled.

"I want no such power." She declared, a lifetime of warnings ringing in her head.

"Why not? Is there something stopping you?"

Varania considered the question instead of rejecting it outright. She was free now and the things that mattered most were all lost to her. There was nothing standing in the way of her using her power, taking power. She was young enough that she could still become an apprentice is she so desired. A shiver ran the length of her spine at the prospect, and her answer was in the slow smile that unfurled across her face for the priest.

She would have power, the one thing that might make freedom worthwhile.


End file.
